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Saturday, October 08, 2011

Knowing what you know about Danzig as a person, did you really expect him to be excited about that book?
No, no. I didn’t know what to expect. When Jay was on his way to interview him, we were speculating. He’s either really gonna be pissed or he won’t give a shit. But it was something weird and in-between. He was like, ‘I don’t give a shit,’ and he wouldn’t even look at it, and then he went on this weird rant, calling us “stupid Internet hipsters.”

You can see the logic - Tumble appeals to kids; some of Barlow's fans are yet to shade into menopause. Can it really be true?

Justin, a favourite on children's channel CBeebies, revealed he and Take That star Gary have discussed working together after first meeting at last year's Children's Baftas bash.

Oh. So it's not exactly a "plan", then?

Justin said: "Gary broke off his tour to present a couple of the awards and said he would only come if he could meet Mr Tumble.

"We met afterwards, became friends and have talked about working together. It would be amazing to do a charity single with Gary, he's a lovely guy with a lovely family."

So, at best, there's been a few vague chats about the possibility of working together. I'm sure Mr Tumble wouldn't be trying to put pressure on Barlow by announcing something that's still a vague idea, right?

In a world littered with dull objects, he brought the beauty of clean lines and clear thought. This rhyme of intellect and intuition could be applied to a wide range of subjects from the US education system, to sculpture, to the fight against HIV/AIDS where his support of (RED) literally transformed the lives of two million people in Africa.

Now, his support for Bono's 'don't worry, just buy stuff' charity may or may not have been a good thing - but how can Bono demonstrate that Jobs' involvement literally transformed two million lives?

Bono also said Jobs was the "hardware software Elvis", although surely his role was more a Colonel Parker?

Due to legal challenges brought by the music labels that own the rights to Michael Jackson’s lyrics, we have been notified by concert promoters Global Live Events and Ridgeline Entertainment that the live Facebook broadcast of the Michael Forever tribute concert has been cancelled. As the technology provider behind the live Facebook broadcast, Milyoni will fully refund all customers who pre-purchased access to the concert using Facebook Credits or PayPal.

“While social media presents a new opportunity for artists and concert promoters to reach global audiences, it is still a new and disruptive frontier ripe with challenges. Milyoni will continue to work closely with our music and entertainment partners to pursue this new channel of distribution, beneficial to both artists and fans worldwide.”

Thursday, October 06, 2011

As to the actual winners... well, there's a lot for Jessie J. Now, admittedly, at the Brits next year she's going to struggle to beat out Adele, but the point remains: Given a chance to differentiate themselves from the Brits, to follow a more credible route, they've instead chosen to fawn over success. There's no way an awards ceremony which ends with Jessie J asking the organisers if they've got a box she can put her prizes in has any claim to be offering any sort of alternative to anything.

“The inspiration behind bringing back the original lineup was that back around when our first record and singles came out, Criminal carried them. It was a big deal for us being a local band at the time to see the posters up and to tell your friends you could buy the record at Criminal. The idea behind the show was to try and create a bill that might have happened back in 1991 back around when our record came out.”

Which is the sort of gesture that makes you wonder if you could get to Atlanta easily.

It might also make you wonder if stressing how important a record shop was twenty years ago actually helps with the fundamental problem of how it can find a role in 2011, but the important thing is buying some breathing space.

Besides his guitar work on the records, Tarplin was a writer, collaborating with Robinson on this:

Tarplin had joined Motown at the end of the 1950s, originally as a backing guitarist for The Primettes (The Supremes as they would become later). Robinson spotted his talent, and grabbed him for the Miracles. When Smokey went solo, Tarplin originally planned to stay with The Miracles, but within a year was back besides Robinson. He would stick with him until his 2008 retirement.

The cause of death has not been made public; Marv Tarplin was 70 years old.

Kanye West revealed his ladies wear collection at Paris Fashion Week a couple of days ago, to snorts of derision. They were fair enough snorts, to be honest: some of the designs would have shamed a contestant on the first week of Project Runway.

"Thank you for anybody that didn't believe, because they motivated us to break our boundaries... We don't know what the reviews will be, we don't know what they will say... I gave you everything that I had.

"This is my first collection. Please be easy. Please give me a chance to grow. This is not some celebrity s**t. I don't f**k with celebrities... The amount of people that tried to get me a celebrity f**king deal. They said, 'You need to do boot-cut jeans, or you won't sell.' Shut the f**k up!...

"I thank anybody who came to this party, everybody who supported, everybody who believed, because people thought it was a joke, and maybe people still do, but I can only grow from this point."

Not some celebrity shit, Kanye? Really? How many other designers have their first fashion show at Paris Fashion Week? And if you know it's so bad you have to issue a plea to be "given a chance", maybe you should be doing what everyone else has to do, and take the "chance to grow" while at fashion school, showing your early work in the more gentle climate of a term-end show.

If you're going to shove actual designers out the way, waving your famous face as the shortcut pass, at least have the decency to take the bad reviews on the chin. Being to be given a chance because it's not something you've got experience of doing is really a roundabout admission that you shouldn't be there.

You'll recall the record shop break-in in Germany which featured Pete Doherty? He's not going to face prosecution, as the German authorities have accepted Doherty's claim that he was too drunk to remember what happened.

In fact, the Germans have decided that he was too drunk to be criminally responsible for what he was doing. Is that an actual defence in Germany? How do people get pulled up for being drunk and disorderly, then? Wouldn't it encourage people who are a bit drunk to get really drunk to cover themselves in case they do something stupid on the way home?

Still: another bloody lucky break for Doherty. He lives to do something incredibly stupid another day.

The former Oasis star is releasing 120 pairs of limited edition Adidas trainers in a couple of weeks' time.

If you are lucky enough to beat the queue at the only shop they are going on sale, Adidas on Newburgh St, London, they will set you back £80.

It's all a contractual arrangement, part of the deal which got Noel to shill from the shoe company last year, but the few they're making, coupled with the bargain basement price gives this the air of "the least I could do."

But the caption on the photo doesn't even have that much engagement:

Ex-shoe-lent ... Noel Gallagher

Ex shoe lent? Ex shoe lent? Are they implying that someone has borrowed Gallagher's old shoes?

You'll note that this is a basic scientific fact - a situation could exist whereby Lady GaGa and Kiss were in the same room, singing the same song, at the same time - dressed up to offer a vague impression that maybe something is already happening to bring about this situation.

You know how, if you use Facebook and Spotify and aren't too careful, how all of a sudden everything you listen to gets pumped out to the wider world? Pandora introduced a similar feature a few months back.

There's now a class action lawsuit being gathered in Michigan, which claims the sudden wittering out of 'now playing' information to the usually-more-public-than-you're-expecting Facebook is a breach of a promise the service made to keep everyone's tastes private. If successful, it could cost Pandora $5,000 a user.

Monday, October 03, 2011

Speaking at the BT Digital Music awards, Singer Ricky Wilson told BANG Showbiz: "Necessity is the mother of invention and there will always be music. Whether it will be a viable career for five guys with guitars I'm not sure at the moment but you know, they'll be there in a garage somewhere."

Bassist Simon Rix added: "What you need when you're a band, what it took for us was for a record company to give us a little money to get us on tour in a van, to get people to see us, to like our band, to get us on the radio and the telly.

"That's what record companies do, and how bands get somewhere, but now they don't do that because they never make it back."

Just think about that for a moment: in the world foreseen by the Kaiser Chiefs, a band like Kasabian would forever be trapped in a garage, never getting out to play to the public.

Actually, as post-apocalyptic scenarios go, that doesn't sound so very bad, does it?

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Lys Assia has a firm place in history - if you stretch 'history' enough to include 'pub quiz questions'. She won the very first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956, although as she picked up the prize Terry Wogan insisted her win was just the result of block-voting by German-speaking nations. Probably.

Our best friend and guitarist Peter Sykes sadly passed away on Tuesday morning. We are all extremely shocked and saddened at the loss of a truly wonderful human being.

We really can't process everything right now as it has been a tremendous shock. We were so very lucky to have even met such a great man and to have shared a stage with him has been a huge pleasure. He was our dear friend and we will miss him.

All our thoughts are with his family at this sad time.

The self-styled "indie pop band from the North" have, understandably, put their plans on hold while they try to cope with the massive shock. Warmest thoughts and commiserations to them.

Soria immigrated to America with his parents when he was four, and grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He joined Valenica - named for the Vonnegut character - at the outset, staying with the band for six years and two albums, and a number of dates across the US and around the world.

Police believe Maxim Soria lost control of his bike and died when he hit a guiderail. He was 28 years old.